Waybar is great, it keeps information like datetime, battery, network, etc. at a glance on the desktop. With Hyprland, it also shows workspaces and running applications.

As great as it is, there is one problem. It takes up screen space.

This is a huge issue on my 13" laptop screen.

Arch + Hyprland on Zenbook 13

December 14, 2025• 9 min read

linuxdotfileshyprland

Strategizing

From what I found online and what I experimented, there were two relatively easy ways to hide Waybar.

1. Toggle visibility with a keybind: The most straightforward way. Just needs a keybind in Hyprland config to send signals to Waybar.
2. Only show when mouse is at a specific region: Windows and some Linux DEs do it this way. Seems like it needs some scripting to do it on Hyprland, but still doable.

During the research I learned from the wiki that Waybar supports two types of signals:

1. SIGUSR1
2. SIGUSR2

Both are listened by Waybar, and their behaviors can be configured in Waybar config file as: show, hide, toggle, reload, noop.

The ones interested me were show and hide. These would allow me to do control visibility from anywhere in my Hyprland config.

Now, with my workflow, I want to minimize the usage of my mouse. So option 2 was out. I also wasn’t a big fan of option 1, since it I would have to remember to hide the bar every time I check something on it.

My Solution

Then I remembered something I did in Final Fantasy 14. There was an option to show a particular UI element like a menu bar only when a key is held down (or was it toggling between two menu bars? I don’t remember exactly). This behavior was what I wanted.

I wanted to show Waybar only when meta key is held down.

Since all of my window and workspace-related keybindings used the meta key, it would allow me to:

1. Hold down meta key to show waybar, quickly glance workspaces, apps, etc.
2. Input rest of the keybinding, and waybar would be hidden automatically when meta key is released.

When I want to check some info on waybar, I would just briefly hold down meta key.

Waybar config

Aside from some styling changes, I just needed to add these two lines to the waybar config file ~/.config/waybar/config.jsonc.

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"on-sigusr1": "show",
"on-sigusr2": "hide",

Quick test:

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kill -SIGUSR1 $(pidof waybar)  # show
kill -SIGUSR2 $(pidof waybar)  # hide

Hyprland config

On Hyprland side, things get a little tricky.

The keybinding itself was pretty straightforward. All I need was binds for holding/releasing in ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf.

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# waybar - show on press, hide on release
bindt = , SUPER_L, exec, killall -SIGUSR1 waybar
bindt = , SUPER_R, exec, killall -SIGUSR1 waybar
bindrt = SUPER, SUPER_L, exec, killall -SIGUSR2 waybar
bindrt = SUPER, SUPER_R, exec, killall -SIGUSR2 waybar

The submap issue

However, as I tested it, I found that the bindrt did not work in one specific scenario: when I entered a submap with the meta key held down.

Waybar would stay visible after I’ve entered the submap and released the meta key, which is okay but not expected. It’s actually a pretty good way to remind myself that I’m in a submap.

It would then stay open when I exit the submap, which is expected, but not okay. Obviously there’s nothing to trigger the SIGUSR2 when exiting the submap, so it stays there. It would stay there until I press the meta key again, which is a bit annoying.

Since this is a very specific problem, I went with a very specific solution, just by launching a tiny script to monitor submap status and hide waybar when exiting a submap.

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#!/bin/bash
# hide waybar when exiting hyprland submap

if pidof -x -o $$ "$(basename "$0")" > /dev/null; then
    echo "Another instance of $(basename "$0") is already running. Exiting."
    exit 1
fi

socat -U - UNIX-CONNECT:$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/hypr/$HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE/.socket2.sock | while read -r line; do
    if [[ "$line" == "submap>>" ]]; then
        killall -SIGUSR2 waybar
    fi
done

And launched it in the Hyprland config:

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exec = $bindir/waybar-submap-monitor.sh

The outcome

With that, I had a waybar that only shows when meta key is held down, with the added bonus of showing the active submap.